Episode 671: Avenging Umpires, Adjustable Innings, and Other Emails
Date May 6, 2015 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about umpires and framing, a different home-field advantage, bad baseball terms, and more. Topics * Umpire reactions to catcher framing * Choosing lengths of games * Pinch hitting performance * Bad baseball terms * Outlawing pickoffs and leading Intro King Crimson, "Frame by Frame" Banter * Episode 668 follow-up: Tanner Roark struck out a batter in his first outing after his strikeout-less streak was highlighted. * Matt Albers will be out 6-8 weeks for finger surgery. * Episode 652 follow-up: Jarrod Saltalamacchia was released. Email Questions * Stuart: "As more and more emphasis is placed on pitch framing, how likely is it that umpires will respond and adapt? Every strike that's called a ball and every ball that's called a strike because of the actions of the catcher acts as an implied criticism of the umpire's ability to call the actual strike zone, isn't it? So what are the odds that umpires act to counteract this? Either by taking into account the framing reputation of individual catchers or working to look past the framing or some other method." * Noah: "When me and my friend play Super Mega Baseball we always argue over how many innings to play in a game. My friend likes to play five or more since he usually puts together one big inning when my pitcher gets tired and doesn't score much otherwise. To counteract this I like to play three innings. We've come to a mutual agreement that the home team gets to pick the amount of innings. This got me thinking, what if it was a rule in real baseball that the home team had to pick the length of the game before each game? They could choose any length they wanted, from say one to eighteen innings. Would teams stick with the traditional nine innings or try to utilize this device strategically? What would be the most important factors the home team would consider when choosing a length of game to maximize their chances of winning? Would rosters be constructed differently and/or custom built for a specific game length? In general, would the home team gain much of an advantage and what do you think the average length of game would be under this new rule?" * Jeff: "Baseball has a lot of terminology that is necessary to describe the game but there are also some non-technical terms in the baseball vernacular that range from less useful to downright annoying. I personally don't like referring to a no-hitter and no-hit bid as a no-no, it just sounds childish and not the fun sort of childish. I've also found that the term slump has lost usefulness as we've gained better data. I thought of this during the Betts/Bogaerts discussions where Betts seemed to have a better stretch of poor results despite hard contact while Bogaerts' struggles last year were related to issues handling sliders or general inconsistency in approach. Both would be called slumps when the causes couldn't have been more different. The word slump implies fault on the player but only describes a small sample of results and generally ignores walks. Are there any other not so technical baseball terms that you wish would just go away? Are there any you particularly like or dislike for no good reason?" * Ben: "Let's say in an effort to shorten games MLB outlawed pickoff throws to any of the bases. This would eliminate the drawn out sequences we sometimes see where one at-bat can take five minutes because there's a pickoff attempt between each pitch, sometimes more than one per pitch. To even the playing field baseball also outlaws leadoffs, but stealing is still allowed. Baserunners would just have to stay on the base until the pitcher begins their motion to home. Baserunners would always know that the pitcher is going to home because pickoffs aren't allowed but wouldn't be allowed to go until the pitcher begins their motion after coming set. Pitchouts are still allowed. What effect would this have on the game? Would we see an increase in stolen bases because the baserunners know the pitcher is going home or would they decrease because they now must run the full 90 feet between bases." Play Index * Alex Rodriguez is a career .118/.250/.294 hitter as a pinch hitter (20 plate appearances). Sam looks up other star players' performance as pinch hitters. * Sam reviews players who, since 1988, had at least 25 plate appearances as a pinch hitter. * Evan Gattis is one of the best ever pinch hitters since 1988, hitting approximately .360/.450/.900 in 29 plate appearances. Jose Lopez is the worst, in 39 plate appearances he hit .77/.77/.77. * By tOPS+, Kurt Suzuki is the best pinch hitter relative to his career stats. Notes * Sam thinks you could have games be seven innings and people would still pay as much for tickets as they currently do. Ben and Sam guess that most games would be seven innings. * In Episode 308 Ben and Sam discussed a proposal about what if all games were played to a certain score, instead of a specific number of innings. * Sam thinks that a 'cold streak' could be better used to describe a player who has bad BABIP luck, instead of one who is 'slumping' because of poor mechanics or another flaw in their control. * Ben and Sam discuss the term 'ace' for a pitcher but think it is still useful. Sam thinks 'magic number' should disappear because of the changing playoff format. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 671: Avenging Umpires, Adjustable Innings, and Other Emails * Yadier Molina Forgot How To Frame A Pitch by Rob Arthur Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes